Environmental Performance - Science topic

Environmental Performance Index is released by Yale's University biennially. It includes a series of indicators and every indicator has a weight. So how was the weight determined? And I do not agree on the fact that every country shares the same weight on each indicator, which is kind of unfair to some developing countries.

Could you assist me in locating research papers that offer evidence supporting the claim that centralized decision-making can lead to improved environmental performance?

Dear Energy and Environmental Researchers,

Kindly assist with me with yearly Environmental Performance Index (EPI) data from 1980 to 2020. I checked the SEDAC website but it appears only EPI for year 2020 is available.

Please if you have YEARLY time series from 1980 to 2020, I will appreciate if you can share. I am also open to collaborating with you using the data as a way of reciprocating the gesture.

Hoping for a favourable feedback, thanks.

Ngozi

I am struggling to find a metric or gold standard for the key environmental and economic variables used to analyse sustainable development/environmental performance of a country. Does anyone here have suggestions on globally recognised variables or key environmental and economic indicators used to examine a country's environmental performance? Thank you!

I am working on environmental and financial performance analysis of selected companies in India while reading several research papers i observed that environmental performance have been measured using content analysis and for measuring financial performance data has been extracted from annual reports.Can i apply panel regression after following content analysis for measurement of one variable.Please clarify.

While reading the annual reports of various companies I observed that some of the companies were following calendar year whereas others were following financial year.Since i have to do analysis of environmental performance and financial performance of selected companies I am confused as to how will i consider companies in my study following different accounting periods?

Hi everyone,

I would like to know if you could help me find a list of the currently certified companies for the norm ISO 14001 relative to environmental performance. I would be specially interested in french certified companies.

Thanks for your help.

Climate change continues to have a rapid impact in the world. Countries are taking a series of measures to combat climate change. At this point, the environmental impacts of SMEs should not be ignored. Especially in countries that have a fragile economic structure, how the measures can be taken against these effects of SMEs? or How can we improve SMEs's environmental performance?

The strategy of product packaging used several times has extra fixed cost and it is more price sensitive. The consumers have extra expense but it's refundable as a deposit , so that the fraction of extra cost can be return back to the consumers. Returnable packaging can achieve the best financial and environmental performance only with consumers behavior or price sensitivity. Thus, the game depends mostly on the consumer's willingness to send back and pay more for expensive packaging with the refundable deposit.

The aim of this game theory is to offer a suitable framework for the low carbon strategy in the processes of packaging planning via a product returnable package.

I want a standard environmental performance index to measure environmental performance of companies (mining companies).

If am interested to study sustainable development in the field of Information Systems.

what could be the issues to be studied or what will be the affecting factors that can improve environmental performance or lower environmental Impact.

Could information systems impact beliefs about the eco-system and environmental sustainability ?

Hello all,

I am trying to benchmark the environmental performance indicators in tourist destinations. I have developed the indicators by reviewing literature from UNWTO, EPI and other research papers; as per the site-suitability. My indicators are both quantitative as well as qualitative. Please suggest the best method of giving weight-age to these indicators for evaluating the aggregated score of different environmental components.

Thanks.

environmental performance

In environmental performance analysis of food systems, is it safe to analyze trade off & synergies of  environmental indicators as a separate objective from life cycle assessment?

Do you know a reliable resource or a database that can give me information on either of CO2/GHG emission, energy consumption, water consumption of objects (furniture and appliances etc) so that I can measure a baseline environmental performance for a bedroom or a room? I assume this information should have calculated the life-cycle of the objects and appliances.

I appreciate your help or any advice in this respect.

In one place Li, J., Tang, G., & Chen, Y. (2012) (doi:10.1080/09585192.2012.665074) showed as just environmental performance protecting the planet and, on the other hand, Jiang, W., Zhao, X., & Ni, J. (2017) (doi:10.3390/su9091567) measured it as relational (contextual) performance and task performance. Interestingly, Jiang et al. do not consider environmental performance at all in their sustainable performance survey measure.

Is there any other ways or measures to explain the sustainable performance.

Thank you so much.

Dear all,

There  are many studies of the mediation relationship between HRM and Environmental performance. But it is hard to find moderators. Do you have any idea

LCA is used to assess the environmental impacts of a product, social LCA can be used to assess the social impacts. What tools or methods have been used to assess the benefit of a product to society. For example new medicines are often assessed on their likely benefits v costs before being made available on the national health. 

Hello everybody,

a colleague and me, we are working on an study that aims at analyzing (and rating) climate change strategies of companies and the interlinkages with companies' actual carbon performance.

We have about 40-50 companies from two sectors: energy-intensive (steel & cement; about 15 cases) and automotive industry (about 30 cases).

We developed a scheme for assessing the climate change strategy of these companies. It consists of 10 different measures that companies can implement in response to climate change (e.g. product/process improvement, emission trading, etc.). Based on publicly available data (CDP database, sustainability reports, etc.) we rated each company in each of these 10 categories/measure with a score from 0-4 (doing nothing-being highly active).

Additionally, we have calculated carbon performance indicators including carbon intensity (CO2 per USD sales) for each company.

We have done these two analyses (strategy and performance assessment) for 2008 and 2013.

Now my question: which (statistical) method would/could you recommend for

...comparing the companies/sectors

...comparing the companies' performance between the two points in time

...analyzing the relationship between strategy and carbon performance?

Thanks in advance for your help! It's much appreciated.

Best regards,

Matthias

I am trying to build a miniature smart grid environment in lab and test its parameters like current, voltage, power etc.

Could anyone tell me if there are any software tool that can help me simulate the smart grid environment and perform tests on its security and reliability.

The ISO 14000 series of environmental management system addresses the following six areas of environmental management:

I. Environmental Management System (EMS)

II. Environmental Auditing (EA)

III. Environmental Performance Evaluation (EPE)

IV. Environmental Labeling (EL)

V. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

VI. Environmental Aspects in Products Standards (EAPS)

I wish to know other point of view regarding the PEF, Product Environmental Footprint, and its applicability in companies. Off course, when PEF will be more than a "pilot project" or when the study phase will be finished, this could be another tool that could be quite easily applied for companies too, but my doubt is: PEF will be simply another environmental accounting system to be added to those already present? (like green label, EMAS, EPD, organic certification, environmental management tools, and so on...finally all the ways to comunicate to the market the link between products and environment). If this it's true, PEF, from my point of view, is nothing new, maybe it is more robust, clear, correct, complete, ot whatever you want....but from the consumers point of view.... it is just another tools that must explained...by highlighting the differences between all the other. In my opinion, companies, and the market, need "lean" management tools in order to obtain 2 goals: internally improve the process by finding the hot spots to be improved and externally comunicate all the efforts spent for a better environmental performance. Off course, already exist some practical tool to reach these objectives (LCA, green label, and so on)....but, in my opinion, there's still confusion because there are too many tools around a single topic

I wonder: PEF, what do you think about it? It could reach the objectives above mentionedin practice? Personally....I wonder if another tool quite close to a label could be helpfull...

Thanks to everyone who'll spend time to answer.

Luca Chiusano

Urban densification has been widely adopted as a strategy to achieve the sustainable city. There is a wide consensus on the benefits of the compact city in regards to environmental performance. Yet, there are some unanswered questions mainly in connection with implementation challenges and the real gains in attaining sustainable development. This is a particularly relevant discussion in a high-income and sparsely populated country such as Norway. In such a context the strategy appears difficult to implement. The implications of urban densification with regard to the sustainable city are analysed in this paper using the concepts of feasibility and effectiveness. The study is conducted by a combination of exploration of theoretical concepts related to the sustainable city and evaluation of empirical data in four Norwegian cities: Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim, and Stavanger. These cases are analysed in relation to densification, dwelling types, and transportation modes. Although densification is proven feasible in most of the studied cities according to the results, this may be happening not solely because of successful planning efforts, but also because of demographic trends. The effectiveness of this strategy with regard to sustainable patterns, particularly in urban mobility, offers, so far, less evident and direct benefits. Densification is only one of the many qualities that the sustainable city requires; however, it is a precondition for the existence of other essential features for urban sustainability. 

Employee engagement is an HR concept

Am also interested in the following with respect to tall buildings in urban situations:

cost/benefit analysis of development,

MFA analysis over lifespan of construction/operation/demolition,

macroeconomic analysis of development and operation,

infrastructural upgrades within existing urban contexts?

Waste management, Energy conservation, Water conservation

“Green taxes” (also called "environmental taxes" or "pollution taxes" or “eco taxes”) are excise taxes on environmental pollutants or on goods whose use produces such pollutants. “Green taxes” are meant to improve the environment or reduce the negative impact on the environment or create an environmentally sustainable environment. “Green taxes” are a kind of economic instruments to address environmental problems. It is generally believe that “green taxes” will reduce environmental harm in the least costly manner, by encouraging changes in behaviour by firms, organisations, communities and households and individuals etc. Taxes on pollution provide clear incentives to polluters to reduce emissions and seek out cleaner and sustainable alternatives.

One “green tax” that has recently gained favour is a carbon tax. Australia introduced carbon tax (July 2012), which is an excise levy on the carbon-based content of fossil fuels (coal, petroleum, gas) as a means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming and climate change. The carbon tax may encourage development and use of clean energy sources in Australia (renewable or green energy such as wind, hydro, and solar). India and Japan has also introduced carbon tax. In Europe, a number of countries have imposed energy taxes or energy taxes based partly on carbon content. There is apparently no “green tax” in the USA; however “green tax” supporter often cite the gasoline tax as a “green tax”. Many European countries have used pollution taxes imposing taxes on emissions of common air pollutants such as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. To combat the negative environmental effects, several states in India (Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, and Karnataka- August 2010) have implemented/going to implement a new “green tax” to fight pollution from old vehicles (commercial vehicles over 8 years old and private vehicles over 15 years old) and creating better public transportation. Very recently, Bangladesh imposed green tax (June 2014) to force polluting factories (principally tanneries) to pay extra levies to clean up the country's increasingly dirty rivers and reducing impacts on the aquatic environment.

Everyone may not agree with “green taxes” however, “green taxes” can be seen as an incentive to lessen environmental burden and preserve the environment. The revenues generated by “green taxes” can also be used for other environmental preservation projects or to cut other taxes. Nevertheless, everyone for sure would like to see an environmentally sustainable future and a healthy natural and living environment in their country.

Question: Can a “green tax” be an incentive to reduce pollution in your country?

A major aspect in evaluating the transformation of renewable energy sources into electric energy seems to be the rate of conversion denominated in efficiency. What about the energy return on the investments into theses systems? Running costs and maintenance might change drastically for the same system in different regions and and under different environmental conditions? How could we compare different systems set up in different regions/climates? Performance ratios are only one point of view - are there others?